“The beauty of monuments as a rubric is, it’s really a way of asking, ‘How do we say who we are? How do we teach our history in public places?’ So much teaching happens without us going into a classroom, and without us realizing we’re being taught. We want to ask how we can help think about how to give form to the beautiful and extraordinary and powerful multiplicity of American stories.... The beauty of the deep study of history is when you realize there’s not just one story, and there’s not just two stories. You realize the power of this country is our multiplicity.”The quote — in the post title — jumped out at me because I'd just blogged about President Trump's declaration from the hospital:
"It's been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn't the let's-read-the-book school. And I get it. And I understand it. And it's a very interesting thing."School beyond school. Of course, the education we receive outside of the classroom is immense. I presume it's far more than what we get inside school, even if we count the part of school that is our homework — the "let's read the book" part as opposed to just the "classroom." And, obviously, with covid, the line "So much teaching happens without us going into a classroom" is inapt, because the foundation president did not mean to exclude the teaching that happens with the child at home and the teacher on the computer screen.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline? Are these 2 statements evidence of that? If they are, it's only implied. What they most noticeably do is give respect to other kinds of learning, and if recognition of learning is bestowed as a form of respect, that suggests all forms of learning are respected.
Says the retired law professor.
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78 comments:
"Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?"
It's on the path to becoming non-existent, as formal schooling becomes woker and woker.
The beauty of the deep study of history is when you realize there’s not just one story, and there’s not just two stories. You realize the power of this country is our multiplicity.”
Err, no. There is just one story. It just happens to be an extremely intricate and complicated story. Refining and updating is good, but stripping it down to some simplistic "there are many stories" relativism mantra is not. It's a formula for balkanization, ultimately fracturing our society. It is a poison pill that will destroy multiculturalism.
It's called on the job training, which is better than anything you can learn by going to school.
Experience (aka the School of Hard Knocks) remains the best life teacher. But it's hard to learn algebra or the Rule Against Perpetuities that way.
Paging Freeman Hunt.
Now is your time to shine.
Lots of formal schooling takes place outside the classroom in the lab, workshop, studio, field, etc. In addition, the gym, pool, ball fields, weight rooms, etc... a beautiful environment that teaches practical Newtonian physics.
“Never let your schooling interfere with your education.” - Mark Twain
You start learning math when you start doing mathemamtical physics on the computer.
Read the book.
Right. That book would be Howard Zinn's delusional, intentionally false, history and books from other authors that repeat the lies.
Take away your history, take away your culture, take away your country.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
does formal schooling still exist? What DO they teach in school these days?
how to put a condom on a banana?
how to HATE WHITES?
I'm hoping that Trump's schooling leads to an innovative policy about covid and lockdown. Something out of the box and surprising. Boom. He had to feel it first hand to get his head around what to do. Now he's gonna build something.
We want to ask how we can help think about how to give form to the beautiful and extraordinary and powerful multiplicity of American stories
Taking a course in writing would help.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
Yes, by school administrators across the land.
What constitutes "formal schooling" appears to be an evolving thing.
"The relocation and rethinking of existing ones." Yes, let's let the feral mobs who've clearly had such fine education and schooling in history decide the fate of our monuments. Let's put up new monuments to drug addled felons who lack even the kindergarten level sense of how not to get shot by cops and maybe an Instagram "influencer" or two.
Sorry, I don't really see those two as equivalent "teaching" moments. The first is "social conditioning" with a liberal institution absorbing yet another liberal goal (destruction of the society's history and bonds) whereas with Trump, it is a personal, direct lesson.
The first about the proper signaling and the second about real life. The flip of the first would be a law and order takeaway of "crack some heads and these hooligans will get the message". They would be inclined to lean that way anyway and this just reinforces where they wanted to go.
YES
Winners write history.
This looks like the SJW are declaring themselves the winners.
They don't know what monument you want, but they already have the story written. The don't know why a monument exist, but will help you wipe its existence from our collective memories. Sounds like quite the homage to history they have going, in the alternative reality they have imagined.
Someone should teach the Mellon foundation about the story of this Nation. The goal of the Constitution. Federalism, and what it means. A govt of the People, by the People.
Education is critical, private groups want to aide education? Instead of studying statues, look at the monument of the Baltimore Public schools. There sits a reminder that not a single child from Kindergarten through 12 grade that is able to read and cypher at grade level.
By all means, Statues, is where the light of truth be shown.
It's really insulting to think I would swallow this SJW crap, by wrapping it in the magic cloak of "education".
"The most expensive form of education is learning by doing" - the most memorable thing I learned in MBA school...
"The most expenseive form of education is learning by doing"
Liberal foundation wastes $250 Million and gets a pass, of course, from fellow liberals at NYT.
The beauty of the deep study of history is when you realize there’s not just one story, and there’s not just two stories.
It is funny how so many edifying lectures presented by the our betters at the nyt are age-appropriate for elementary school students.
I suggest, not a decline in respect, but an all out contempt for liberal arts education in this country. Have the elite demonstrated more or less competence than our college educated NBA? Who thinks Boston University, in giving us AOC, has shown itself as a fine school? Who thinks Duke, with its Gang of 88, remains highly respected?
How can respect for formal schooling NOT be on the decline when it is loaded up with diversity experts, critical race theory and one sided thinking.
I studied computer science in school, I learned how to apply it on the job.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
I certainly hope so. I encourage every family who can to remove their children from traditional schooling. It's anachronistic, and it imposes totally artificial timelines on learning material. Males are particularly disadvantaged, because their inability to maintain still and quiet in a cold, sterile classroom environment for long stretches of time is seen as a behavioral problem that needs to be remedied. As the homeschooling community has repeatedly demonstrated, kids do not need traditional school settings in order to thrive.
Public school is kind of a misnomer. They're more a hybrid of daycare, education, and social work. Schools don't just try to impart knowledge; they try to impart values.
Something tells me Andrew Mellon ain't gonna like what they do with his money.
"Reimagine Mounuments ...will support ...the relocation or rethinking of existing ones."
Hmm.
"Rubric" is one of the most overused words of the past decade.
If "duplicity" is considered dishonest, what the hell is "multiplicity"?
This jargon-filled ideologue has a quarter-billion dollars to spend erasing our history.
Wealthy people with too much time on their hands, and no risk. The people destroying out country have to face risk to their reputations and livelihoods or they won't stop.
Someone said recently we shouldn't be concerned about the statues and monuments being taken down as we should the ones that will take their place For example, DC recently had a committee publish a report proposing the removal or renaming of numerous public places, many for some of our most important figures in history, even proposing renaming a school that is currently named for Alexander Graham Bell. However, DC had no problem whatsoever recently putting up a statue to coke-head mayor Marion Barry. And the Democrats want to make dysfunctional DC a state.
Pulblic school education in many places has put itself on its deathbed. There are many good homeschooling options available for those who can do it. There may be better options for many teachers to become tutors for homeschooling pods than being tied down by a corrupt labor union they don't want to be a part of. One positive of the pandemic is showing to many parents how awful their public school system really is.
tim maguire said...
Err, no. There is just one story. It just happens to be an extremely intricate and complicated story. Refining and updating is good, but stripping it down to some simplistic "there are many stories" relativism mantra is not. It's a formula for balkanization, ultimately fracturing our society. It is a poison pill that will destroy multiculturalism.
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues."
- Will Durant, who also said,
"History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice."
The best education is self-education.
Read 5 books on any one subject, find someone to discuss it with and you've had yourself a college class in 2020 or high school class in 1920.
Formal schooling is useful or critically important to learn certain things. You are unlikely to master algebra or biochemistry just by hanging out with a bunch of random people, certainly not efficiently. But formal schooling is far less useful, indeed it may be inimical, to learning social skills, how to behave, how to read people and work with them, how to develop physical arts and skills like athletics, dance, how to hammer nails or weld steel or drive a truck.
I share the concern of Tim McGuire @ 6:18, that the Mellon lady is spouting PC BS, with her panegyric about “multiculturalism,” which in practice means not fusion of many stories into a larger whole, but splitting the “Narrative” into many weak and jealous domains, so intent upon not being overwritten by others that they distort their own story and reject the rest. We see that now with BLM and the rest of the Marxist activists. IMVHO.
It is always a mistake to take at face value the word salad fog generated by leftists like the head of the Mellon Foundation, or to assume that their "ideas" are offered in good faith. Inevitably, the result will be to tear down the ideas and principles on which America was founded but which are an impediment to the progressive project.
Public workers' unions are an abomination, leading inexorably to corrupt practices.
The NEA and other such groups should be abolished.
Teachers unions work for teachers, and the Democrats they corruptly support, not students.
I expect home schooling and private schooling to be a boom phenomenon. This is partly because of the greed of the teachers' unions and partly because of a sense that school has lost its way. Higher ed, as in colleges, are going to see a collapse due to student loan debt and a reaction to the insanity of racial hatred.
"School's out... for... ever!"
Well. Whatever monuments they build, the Teddy Roosevelt monument tells us we must not ever make it look as is white presidents were more powerful than black men or native Americans.
I think trust in formal education institute is in decline.
Parents are tired of their children leaving primary school and unable to do simple math skills or write more than one paragraph.
Graduates leaving high school can't calculate change on their own, much less balance a check book, and forget about managing a line of credit.
New engineers care more about the social standing of a company than their knowledge of basic engineering.
Yet teachers care more about what monument is on campus.
Re-thinking
Re-imagining
Re-education
These stupid Americans love their country. I mean, WTF? How did that happen? We need to fix this.
Today so much of formal schooling is about acquiring credentials. Just knowing is not enough. You need a piece of paper that says you know it. As having the credentials is less of a reliable indicator of competence, informal education will become popular again. Employers will find other ways to sort applicants. It will be remarkably freeing for people to be allowed to leave the paper chase behind and embrace the joy of learning.
Mark Twain said it a century+ ago: I try to never let my schooling interfere with my education.
IT's even more true today
Damn you Bears Blog for beating me to it!
This sounds like some elaborate camouflage to cover for an impending effort to take down monuments to the founding fathers.
The obvious way to give form to the beautiful and extraordinary and powerful multiplicity of American stories is to stuff down the memory hole all the American stories which are insufficiently like our own.
“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.” - B. Franklin
Here is a homeschooling website that was recommended to me by a friend that looks to be pretty good. It even will customize its program to conform to local state standards. In looking through the curriculum it appears to be very similar to the education I received 50-60 years ago. I wonder how many public schools today are as good as this? Add in some tutoring using a pod with other families - say for science courses with labs - and add in some Great Courses at the high school level and you could probably get a pretty good education without all the Marxist indoctrination.
"Rethinking and relocation" of existing monuments. How does one "rethink" a monument? ITs obvious code words for getting rid of American Patriotic statues by "Relocating" them to a storage bin.
More and more the USA is resembling the USSR, with the air brushing of history, code words, and top level, undemocratic, destruction of the prior "bourgeoise" version of the country along with its symbols, history and words.
That Mellon is devoting $250 MILLION shows the power elite is behind all the monument smashing, its NOT just random street people or offended blacks. And no, the Mellon Foundation isn't "Wasting" its money. The people running the foundation get paid the same amount whether they spend it foolishly or wisely. SO, going "Haha" is idiotic. but some can't think of the world in anything except material terms.
"Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?"
Somehow I misplaced my "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" book over the years, but this is a question any serious person wouldn't ask.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
Formal education saved me from what could have been a miserable life. I am not just speaking of college and grad school (which are largely for credentialing) but of remarkable teachers I had in private and public grade school and high school.
However, much of the educational establishment switched from teaching kids HOW to think to teaching the WHAT to think. I cannot respect that. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms as deliberate child abuse.
tastid212 @8:33: "'Rubric' is one of the most overused words of the past decade."
Amen to that. I would go further and express gratitude for those who use "rubric," because it has become such an obvious vacuity of a word. So anyone uttering it is thereby revealed as a pompous self-absorbed popinjay who spares us the trouble of attending to anything else they may say or write.
knock down Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and the demand for useless degrees will drop quickly.
Before the last 10 years, I had never heard rubric used at all except in the phrase "Under the rubric of..".
Then suddenly it started popping up in public school verbiage all the time.
And so society progresses. One step, two steps, baby steps, into the grave.
What we've learn from the "lock downs" is that public school teachers aren't essential workers and that when they say "it's for the children" is Bullshit.
Note that in Kansas City Mo Catholic schools are in classroom and full bore. They are not union teachers.
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
Respect is a lagging indicator of merit.
“Reimagine”? People who use that word always seem to have terrible ideas but like to sound profound and important.
I’ve learned to translate it as “you can stop listening now”.
Blogger Ralph L said...
Something tells me Andrew Mellon ain't gonna like what they do with his money.
This is true of all these foundations. Can anyone imagine Henry Ford coming back to see what a leftist mush has been made of his foundation?
Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions! Man, I loved that. So much of my life view is controlled by Mad Magazine.
Where does Elizabeth Alexander think monuments come from? Some in Washington DC were built by the federal government, but from what I've seen (Midwest) most are put up by private associations. The Italian organizations put up Christopher Columbus and Yogi Berra, the GAR funded Sheridan and Grant; the state of Illinois put up John Logan and the woman's face by Picasso. Some companies simply put up statues or plaques on their own property, no need even to get permission.
Done this way, monuments reflect many different ideas of what people and what deeds have mattered. You can take it or leave it.
If monuments come to be curated with an idea of creating a sort of organized curriculum (for the benefit of the unwashed populace), Alexander apparently wishes, we will face a single interpretation of our history and of the nature of our society. That's almost the definition of totalitarianism.
"So much teaching happens without us going into a classroom, and without us realizing we’re being taught."
Does a commensurate amount of learning happen, and without us realizing we're learning?
Is respect for formal schooling on the decline?
I think formal schooling itself is on the decline, and the respect has declined accordingly. @Althouse, you wouldn’t respect a law school whose graduates didn’t know the definition of “tort” or what “res ipsa loquitur” means, so why should I respect an elementary school whose graduates are helpless to add a column of figures or calculate a tip without their iPhones, and who enter high school asking why the family of a friend moving to Hawaii has to ship the family car and can’t just drive there.
"The beauty of the deep study of history is when you realize there’s not just one story, and there’s not just two stories. You realize the power of this country is our multiplicity."
Tell it to BLM, teach them, get your fellow progs to buy in, then get back to us and we'll talk.
Of course, as a cynical conservative, I view the rhetoric of multiplicity as another prog tool, the better to impose the preferred Narrative.
Higher ed is self-destructing.
https://www.facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe/posts/3679341305409319
J. Farmer said
Public school is kind of a misnomer. They're more a hybrid of daycare, education, and social work. Schools don't just try to impart knowledge; they try to impart values.
I agree with this. The cause though, rests with the governments faux presentation to parents of "experts say" twaddle. Through this deference to authority, parents willfully ceded the parental authority, and responsibility to government. This is a back and forth we took on for our kids K-12 education. Starting with the school "recommending" our son not enter kindergarten. Even though every single measure they used he excelled at, usually higher than their evaluations went. His lagging indicators were testicles and birthday. The Superintendent intervened to counsel us, and promised, his word, our son would fail at some point in his education. He graduated in the top 5 in his class, not top 5%, top 5, and survived the 08 recession when engineers with a decade of experience where let go, and he kept his place.
Educators with masters, and doctorates were wrong.
Schools need to treat parents as customers, and no adversaries.
The biggest problem is parents are the ones demanding that schools take on roles the schools should not embark on. Parents that fail simple things like making sure the student shows up at the door, fed and well rested, just don't care. And Government cannot parent.
When I was a school board member I heard the word rubric all the time from the teachers union reps as well as the district superintendent. I suggested to one of my fellow board members that we introduce a motion to replace "rubric" with Rubik Cube in all our district lesson plans. I was told the motion would fail for lack of a second. I still think issuing Rubik Cubes to students (and teachers) would be more beneficial than rubrics.
If they want to know the answer, they should ask the phone operators from various schools who call to beg money.
I would bet they can tell you how the schools with which people have experience and relationships are less respected than they were a decade ago.
First, defund the Dept of Education and stop collecting useless statistics for reports nobody reads.
Then fire all the administrators who produced the useless statistics.
"The founders would not have liked what they're doing with the money". So what? Does that mean anything? No.
Is there a modern monument that isn't terrible-looking? The abundance of terrible monument design would be the first problem to solve.
As for subjects, those in charge have no clue what to make monuments for nor the importance of most monuments that already exist, and that's going to cost a hell of a lot more than $250 million to fix.
@Francisco:
However, much of the educational establishment switched from teaching kids HOW to think to teaching the WHAT to think. I cannot respect that. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms as deliberate child abuse.
You hear this kind of remark a lot, but I don't think it's accurate. If anything, the model in education has moved in the opposite direction you suggest. Instead of the old knowledge-based curricula, they've largely moved to the "critical thinking" kind of curricula. It was part of the push from the big education report A Nation at Risk in 1983.
I don't think that was a good description. Teaching critical thinking skills is dicey business, and it's not clear how much it's even possible. And even if it is, there is not one set of skills (ie critical) that apply across a wide variety of domains. You can't, for example, answer a complicated question about medicine without possessing a lot of knowledge of the subject.
It is unlikely that schools have the ability to significantly form a child's worldview, which isn't really taught to a child in the normal sense. It's more like something a child constructs in their head as a result of observation and social interaction. Peer interaction probably has a bigger impact than anything the teacher says.
$250 million is a lot of money to spend for such a limited imagination.
Monuments? Or Participation Trophies?
No need to worry. Most of that money will be squandered by the arts grifters and the bureaucracy that arises to "manage" the funds.
You'll get a couple George Floyd monuments to replace a couple George Washington monuments in some ghetto neighborhood, and the money will be gone.
J. Farmer said...
I don't think that was a good description. Teaching critical thinking skills is dicey business, and it's not clear how much it's even possible. And even if it is, there is not one set of skills (ie critical) that apply across a wide variety of domains. You can't, for example, answer a complicated question about medicine without possessing a lot of knowledge of the subject.
*******************
Oh for fuck's sake.
Spend some time in a Literature class analyzing Shakespeare. Or parsing English sentences.
Or some time in a Chemistry, Physics or Math class. SOLVE those problems!
Or even in a Latin class , declining verbs.
Best yet, go to medical or law school and get your brains beaten in day in and day out by professors who demand clarity, precision, logic and the ability to diagnose "the issues".
Yes, you'll have to have a sound background in critical thinking to engage in it at higher levels, but the pure fact is that high school "teachers" are NOT engaged in teaching "critical thinking" any more.
Why do I say that? Because many high school students never take classes of the old-fashioned type that I describe. They can't write, because they've never been required to learn how to. They can't reason, because their teachers are too busy indoctrinating them by demanding they read certain books and then AGREE with their premises.
They can't even do basic math. Lessee...if I need 1 1/2 cup of water for every cup of dry rice, how much do I need for 3/4 cups dry rice?
Or "science". Ask almost every "climate change" zealot what the largest component of the Earth's atmosphere, and listen to their almost-always-wrong answer. (I met many here will have to look it up).
Ask them to explain why the last increase of 1 degree in the average atmospheric temp didn't result in climate catastrophe, while the next 1 degree will. And so on.
Just consider what a travesty high school history has become, with mindless teachers using the incredibly intellectually shoddy Howard Zinn's book as their Bible. It's no wonder that Columbus statues are coming down, because Zinn DELIBERATELY DISTORTED Columbus's activities in the New World, accused him of introducing slavery in the Western Hemisphere, and ascribing ideas and beliefs to him that he never held.
So..no. They're not teaching "critical thinking". It's just Leftist Propaganda, straight up.
Originally a rubric was an outline of the prayers, hymns, and bible verses to be used on each day of the church calendar of the Church of England. It eventually became incorporated into Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. I heard a lot about Rubrics while earning my Master's plus 60, Education Specialist teaching certificate. It's a mandated centralized lesson plan. Calling it a Rubric was just to fancy it up and disguise the authoritarian nature of it.
@wholelottasplainin':
So..no. They're not teaching "critical thinking". It's just Leftist Propaganda, straight up.
With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. You've regurgitated a bunch of old culture war tropes that have little to do with the functioning of the public education system. Standards and curricula have been moving from knowledge-based to skills-based for the last several decades, going back to the National Commission on Excellence in Education in the early 90's. That you're clueless about this doesn't mean it didn't happen. One of the initial effects was to make public schooling more overtly about vocational preparation and taking cues from the business community regarding necessary skills.
Amazingly, evaluations like PISA and the NAEP do not reveal this illiteracy and innumeracy you've diagnosed. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is not a "Bible" to high school history teachers or even widely read or referred to. For one, it's a commercial book, not a textbook. The textbooks used in high school history classes come from major textbook publishers like Houghton Mifflin or Prentice Hall and include titles like The American Pageant or America Past Or Present. Go grab a copy of of one of these if you want to say what a typical high school history class would cover.
I agree with you that they're "not teaching critical thinking," but it's because you can't. There is no discrete set of cognitive skills that are for "critical thinking." The phrase itself is a muddle with no widely-agreed upon definition.
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